Exercise 5: Web Site Organization & Navigation Peter Levasseur Class: Digital Studio 1 Term: Fall 2010 Professor: Sarah Adams

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Ashlie Morris
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1 Exercise 5: Web Site Organization & Navigation Evaluate Web site design in terms of information architecture, organization, and navigation. Choose one site that you consider to have good site organization and navigation, and one site you think suffers from poor site organization and navigation. For each site (good site and poor site), describe the site organization. To support your description: Create a map for each site that shows at least the first and second levels of organization. The site maps do not need to be overly detailed, but should clearly define how each site is organized. For each site, describe what make s the information architecture, organization, and navigation successful or unsuccessful. Use images from the sites as appropriate to illustrate your discussion. Describe how you would improve the navigation and organization of the poorly designed site. Create images as appropriate to illustrate your design changes. Present your evaluation as one or more Web pages. I thought it would be interesting to compare two companies that provide the same type of service or product. Considering I am always in need of more energy I decided to do Energy Drinks. I chose AMP as my bed web site because it isn t very smooth and the links are somewhat confusing. As the better web site I choose Monster Energy. The way they break down the categories in very functional way makes the web site a great improvement compared to AMP.

Amp Energy (not successful) AmpEnergy.com The navigation on this page is very confusing. Certain links open new windows while others open a sub category in the navigation box.

2 Amp Energy (not successful) AmpEnergy.com The navigation on this page is very confusing. Certain links open new windows while others open a sub category in the navigation box. One of the links doesn t seem to do anything. There is a lot of room for improvement. If you select one of the subcategories it creates a circle over the selected link. The problem is its a generic link and does not correctly circle the words. The overall design of the pages is very rough. There are such a variety in font sizes and widths. There doesn t seem to be a consistent layout from page to page. It seems as though they tried to throw in a lot of content with interesting features but didn t consider the layout and usability.

3 Site Map Index Sports Culture Events Promos Tools Drinks Gear Racing What s Next 6 Days to Race AMP Countdown Snowboarding Get on the 88 MMA There are many reasons why I chose Amp Energy as my bad web site example. The main navigation is on the left side below the logo. One of the issues that bother me is when you select certain categories in the navigation more categories are revealed within the navigation window. I feel this could have been done so much better. Compared to my other example I don t feel the page layout is very successful. AMP UP Shotgun To make this page better I would consider putting the navigation across the top of the page. This would make it easier to add the subcategories once the link is selected. A list can open across the page below the main categories. If they feel that the navigation has to be on the right side of the page they should consider making tabs. I ve seen some very successful web sites that have page tabs that change. The subcategories can be located within the new window. This could be accomplished with a similar flash page like the one created by Monster Energy. Having subcategories opening under the main category is very annoying. Not all of them have subcategories and some opened new windows. The page has a lot of weird moving objects. If they are going to incorporate flash I feel it needs to be done in a more consistent way. For users who are not familiar with navigating through crazy web sites this will be a challenge. Almost every page has text over images. When the text blends into the background they created a black background. it seems out of place. I would have limited the size of the photograph and placed the text over a solid color. The text should be somewhat consistent so the viewer realizes what the headers and body copy are. Keeping the headers in the same area would help viewers with the navigation.

4 Monster Energy (successful) MonsterEnergy.com I feel that this web site is very easy to navigate. When a category is selected it opens a page full of sub categories. Its laid out and easy to get around compared to my other example.

5 Site Map Index Sports Athletes Bands & Music Celebrities Monster Girls Products Promotions 2 Wheel Dirt A - F Roby Dyrdek Kim Bidgood Monster Energy 2 Wheel Asphalt G - M Rick Thorne Sonni Pacheco Java Monster 4 Wheel Dirt N - S Jason Acuna Grace Elizibeth Nitrous Action Sports T - Z The Dingo December Wclund X-Presso Water Sports Snow Sports Zack Yankush T.J. Lavin I chose Monster Energy as my better navigation site because it was the most successful energy drink web site I cam across. The way they break all the categories into subcategories in visually interesting and easy to navigate. The main window changes from a video show to a list of categories based on the link chosen. If someone doesn t like the navigation at the top of the page a list of all categories and subcategories are located at the bottom of the page. It is very easy to work your way through the page. The web site is very consistent. I like the color scheme and how it relates to the products. The only downside to the navigations switching from the slide show if you move the curser off the navigation or the window it goes back to the slide show.

Hershey Park. By: Alicia Danenhower. English 3880 Section 10. Deborah Welsh.

Hershey Park. By: Alicia Danenhower. English 3880 Section 10. Deborah Welsh. Hershey Park http://www.themeparkpage.com/images/hershey-web/dsc00263000.jpg By: Alicia Danenhower English 3880 Section 10 Deborah Welsh 11/8/2011 Hershey Park 1 Introduction This report analyzes the ways